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About Georges

Long out of print in America, Alexandre Dumas’s most daring narrative is now available in this major new translation by Tina A. Kover. Filled with intrigue, romance, and deadly vengeance, Georges is the story of a wealthy mulatto boy who is driven from his island home by racist landowners. Returning to Mauritius as an accomplished young man, Georges pits his strength against a powerful plantation owner, leading a dramatic slave uprising and claiming the heart of a beautiful white woman. Georges stands apart as the only book by Dumas that explores the potent subject of race.

“A remarkable discovery . . . We are indebted to Werner Sollors and Jamaica Kincaid for providing us with a critical lens for the journey Dumas has created out of his own generous and expansive imagination.” –Rudolph P. Byrd, Emory University

“As compelling and relevant today as it was back in the 1840s, when it was first published.” –Adrienne Kennedy, author of Funnyhouse of a Negro

About Georges

A major new translation of a stunning rediscovered novel by Alexandre Dumas, Georges is a classic swashbuckling adventure. Brilliantly translated by Tina A. Kover in lively, fluid prose, this is Dumas’s most daring work, in which his themes of intrigue and romance are illuminated by the issues of racial prejudice and the profound quest for identity.

Georges Munier is a sensitive boy growing up in the nineteenth century on the island of Mauritius. The son of a wealthy mulatto, Pierre Munier, Georges regularly sees how his father’s courage is tempered by a sense of inferiority before whites–and Georges vows that he will be different.

When Georges matures into a man committed to “moral superiority mixed with physical strength,” the stage is set for a conflict with the island’s rich and powerful plantation owner, Monsieur de Malmédie, and a forbidden romance with Sara, the beautiful woman engaged to Malmédie’s son.

Swordplay, a slave rebellion, a harrowing escape, and a vow of vengeance–Georges is unmistakably the work of the master who wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Yet it stands apart as the only book Dumas ever wrote that confronts the subject of race–a potent topic, since Dumas was of African ancestry himself.

This edition also features a captivating Introduction by Jamaica Kincaid and an eloquent Afterword and Notes by Werner Sollors, who addresses key themes such as colonialism, racism, African slavery, and interracial intimacy.

Long out of print in America, Georges can now be appreciated as never before and added to the greatest works of this immortal author.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Praise

“Georges is an illuminating, instructive, and enduring blueprint of racial conflict and strife, as compelling and relevant today as it was back in the 1840s, when it was first published.” –Adrienne Kennedy, author of Funnyhouse of a Negro

“I know this is a novel of great historical and cultural significance and that it explores complex issues of race and colonialism and all, but what matters to a guy like me is, it’s a hell of a read. Sea battles and land battles, a steamy setting and hot-blooded gallantries, ancient enmities and sweet revenge, forbidden love, insults and duels, bravado and bravery and redemption, hot pursuit and desperate flight and crushing captures and daring escapes. What a story! And Kover’s translation lets all the lushness and the romance and the passion come through with cinematic clarity.”–David Bradley, author of The Chaneysville Incident

“A remarkable discovery that expands the corpus of Alexandre Dumas. Rendered in beautiful language, this is a tale that transports us to a time and place that still speaks to us in our present circumstances. We are indebted to Werner Sollors and Jamaica Kincaid for their framing documents that provide us with a critical lens for the journey Dumas has created for us out of his own generous and expansive imagination.” –Rudolph P. Byrd, Emory University

“A brilliant example of the French Romantic novel, far too infrequently read and . . . deserving of a broader audience.”–Barbara T. Cooper, professor of French, University of New Hampshire

From the Hardcover edition.

About Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas (père) lived a life as romantic as that depicted in his famous novels. He was born on July 24,1802, at Villers-Cotterêts, France, the son of Napoleon’s famous mulatto general, Dumas, His early education was scanty, but his beautiful… More about Alexandre Dumas

About Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas (père) lived a life as romantic as that depicted in his famous novels. He was born on July 24,1802, at Villers-Cotterêts, France, the son of Napoleon’s famous mulatto general, Dumas, His early education was scanty, but his beautiful… More about Alexandre Dumas